Big event of the week! Amazon’s threats to employees were exposed!

The latest news, today the editor learned that customs officers accepted 174 declarations of cross-border e-commerce parcel export return goods from Cainiao International yesterday, with a total value of RMB 14,169.31. The goods were released after inspection and no abnormalities were found. This means that the cross-border e-commerce export return channel has been successfully opened.

According to the results of the customs' preliminary survey, the return rate of cross-border e-commerce export packages is about 5%, among which the return rate of some categories of goods such as clothing is more than 10%. In recent years, with the development of cross-border e-commerce export business, the poor return channels for export goods have become one of the factors restricting its development. On the other hand, the State Customs is also constantly optimizing the supervision system, establishing an efficient return channel, and striving to ensure that cross-border e-commerce goods can be shipped out and returned.

Recently, Amazon announced that it will stop using the "Free Shipping Promotion" feature starting January 13. This feature is a promotional feature exclusively for self-delivery sellers. Sellers can set a promotion for their orders such as "Free shipping for purchases over xx US dollars" to encourage buyers to place orders in combination, which is considered a promotional means that can significantly increase sales. The announcement also pointed out that sellers must make changes to advertising promotions and offer free shipping promotions in advertisements before January 13, 2020 to encourage consumers to buy more goods and meet the conditions for free shipping.

This move is believed to be intended to further promote the free delivery service for Prime members and boost the number of Prime members.

The latest news is that as the world's largest e-commerce company, Amazon's (AMZN.US) retail business has moved beyond the Internet and into the physical retail sector. In the United States, India and other countries, Amazon has begun to engage in physical retail on a large scale through self-operated stores, acquisitions, and equity investments.

It is understood that Amazon previously spent about $14 billion to acquire the American food supermarket chain Whole Foods, immediately acquiring hundreds of retail stores across the United States, which also marked the beginning of Amazon's stride into the physical retail market. For traditional retail giants such as Walmart (WMT.US) and Target (TGT.US), Amazon's "attack" on them has shifted from the Internet to physical retail, and the threat it poses is growing.

Recently, Amazon launched the Amazon Hub, a network of parcel pickup points in Australia. The network aims to provide Australian customers with more convenient service options. Hundreds of stations will be set up in the initial stage, and it is expected to increase to thousands of stations in 2020.

Of the items sold on Amazon Australia, more than 125 million items can be delivered to Amazon Hub sites at no extra cost to customers.

Amazon Hub network offers two pickup options: one is parcel locker pickup, and the other is counter pickup. Parcel locker pickup was first launched in the United States in 2011. It is a self-service terminal that allows consumers to choose the most convenient pickup point to pick up their parcels. Now, Australian users can find Amazon parcel lockers in dozens of Commonwealth Bank branches, VANA Association newsagents and Stockland Shopping Center.

Amazon Employees For Climate Justice issued a statement on Twitter that two employees may be fired because they publicly criticized the company's environmental policies. Legal and human resources representatives have contacted several employees involved, saying that their behavior violated the company's external communication policy.

Amazon Climate Justice said in a statement that it revised its company policy in September last year, and the updated policy "requires employees to obtain company approval before speaking in any public forum as Amazon employees."